andhravodu:those bottomfeeders can keep that overhyped piece of rock. We are busy making progress. and besides, in 50 years, they will be begging to come to India anyway. But we are elephants, we have a loooong memory

I am vexed -- most considerably vexed! -- at the squawks of discontent emenating from The Raj. It is disconcerting that the Punjabs are not appreciative of Her Majefty's efforts to rehabilitate them up from their lowly station into something more noble and useful. If it isn't 'quit stealing our treasures', 'quit filling our bellies full of jackfruit' it is some other mewling of dissatisfaction without a whit of appreciation for what the Empire has accomplished for them. I strongly encourage the deployment of red-coats to straighten out these ungrateful malcontents.

rickythepenguin:hitlersbrain: You can grow diamonds pretty cheap in a lab. They are actually quite worthless. The only way to tell which ones were dug out of the ground by some dying African slave worker is by looking for the imperfections that are hard to fake. The more perfect the diamond, the less value it has.

Joe Rogan mentioned that recently on his podcast. he was taken to some top secret facility in I think Russia, (he had to leave his iPod / smartphone so it couldn't make a GPS track of where he went) and engineers had perfected the synthetic diamond. as you said, the synthetics was technically more "pure" (and thus, you'd think 'perfect') than "organic" diamonds, but were bizarrely nowhere near as valuable. people would rather have the real thing, even with microscopic imperfections, than an artifical object that was technically a "better" product.

They're not even really a big secret anymore. You can go to a website right now and for less than $500 get a rock so big and bright your girlfriend's panties will break the sound barrier hitting the ground.

I'm all for acknowledging our forebears mistakes and making up where we can, but Sir Harry Paget Flashman, VC, KCB, KCIE, didn't go through all that trouble during the First Sikh War smuggling the Koh-i-Noor out just to have it handed right back.

Treygreen13:Fano: germ78: Kinda off-topic in a way, but I was very disappointed by the Hope diamond. I thought it would be a fist-sized gem, but it's only as big as 3 quarters stacked on each other. farking. Lame.

You must have been thinking of the famed Baseball Diamond.

The Cullinan Diamond was fist-sized.

I blame you for the 3 hours I just lost learning about many different diamonds, the British Crown Jewels, Oliver Cromwell, the Norman invasion, the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, castle construction, and various British parliaments.

Gordon Bennett:kbronsito: I've never been to London... is there an entrance fee to go into the museum? Maybe people who had their crap stolen from them should have it waive by showing their passports. Because it's a dick move to steal someone's stuff but its an even more dickish move to charge them money to look at it.

There is no entrance fee, but there is a large urn just inside the entrance for those who choose to give a recommended donation. It's quite interesting to see as it has money from all around the world inside. I doubt that it is emptied often.

As for returning their treasures, India is free to wait along with Greece and Egypt. The advantage of having built history's greatest empire is the legacy of stolen treasures from all over the planet and building the British Museum which is surely the world's greatest monument to theft on a grand scale. It may not be right, but at least it's all on display inside a genuinely stunning building for the world to see.

Besides, I can't imagine any sort of genuine global attempt to return property and land taken in the past through force and treachery without the lot of us returning to the Old Stone Age. There comes a point in which you really must stop fighting battles in retaliation of injustices committed against your long-dead ancestors against the other side's descendants born years or even centuries after the fact.

Britain could always say, "We accept this gem, and the curry, in payment for your country not being ruled by men in pajamas, being a literate society, a democracy, giving your educated sons and daughters a place to earn a decent living, and less of a third world shiathole than would otherwise have been the case. You're welcome!"

Reuters, when I click a link about a big ass diamond set into the royal crown, I want to see a picture of that big ass diamond, not David Cameron channeling Omar from The Wire. That said, sorry France, you're not getting the Hope Diamond back either. Should've put some heavier security around the French Blue.

They're not even really a big secret anymore. You can go to a website right now and for less than $500 get a rock so big and bright your girlfriend's panties will break the sound barrier hitting the ground.

URL or we'll be forced to call shenanigans.

http://www.diamondnexus.com/round-brilliant-cut-classic-series.html

You can get a 4.91 carat synthetic diamond from them for less than 500. If you want to go comically large they offer a 16 carat diamond for $1600. Please don't do that, though. Nobody will believe you've got the scratch for a 16 carat diamond unless people think you've got a cool mil lying around just for rings.

Yeah, are we sure they're dealing in octahedral carbon diamond? The language used in their vid has more weasels than a Yorkshireman's pants. Gemesis comes out and says lab grown diamonds, Diamond Nexus talks about "the only difference is the chemistry" in their video and who knows what that means. Silicon carbide was mistaken for synthetic diamond 150 years ago and can be grown in crystals large enough to make armor.

#1. Deadliest Warrior is a one on one competition (or at least it was when the Apache won) so there is no Phalanx formation.#2. The Roman Gladiator, in this case, is equipped with a rather small shield - one about the size and weight expected of a gladiator. Remember, the point of the battle was offense, blood, kills.#3. The fight occurs (in this scenario) in the woods and at range. Not exactly "home turf" for the Gladiator.#4. The Gladiator comes to battle with a net. I mean, come on. A net.

May as well have made the gladiator naked and only holding a nerf dildo and the Apache swinging a chainsaw. Talk about a rigged fight in the name of Political Correctness.

Kahabut:Walker: Kahabut: PsiChick: Walker: You are comparing apples and oranges. This is a physical item that was stolen and can be given back. A better comparison would be things the Nazis stole during WW2 from other countries now being in Germany's possessions. The other countries ask for them back and Germany says "F*ck you, we don't believe in returnism".

WhippingBoy:andhravodu: those bottomfeeders can keep that overhyped piece of rock. We are busy making progress. and besides, in 50 years, they will be begging to come to India anyway. But we are elephants, we have a loooong memory

those bottomfeeders can keep that overhyped piece of rock. We are busy making progress. and besides, in 50 years, they will be begging to come to India anyway. But we are elephants, we have a loooong memory

They're not even really a big secret anymore. You can go to a website right now and for less than $500 get a rock so big and bright your girlfriend's panties will break the sound barrier hitting the ground.

I've never been to London... is there an entrance fee to go into the museum? Maybe people who had their crap stolen from them should have it waive by showing their passports. Because it's a dick move to steal someone's stuff but its an even more dickish move to charge them money to look at it.

Spiralmonkey:phalamir: Ehh, what India needs to do is threaten to have the Anglo-Indian shut down all the curry shops in London. The Koh-i-Noor will be back in India inside of a week

Nobody would notice, what with the Pakistani and Bangladeshi curry houses everywhere.

Tell the Pakistanis they can have Kashmir, and the Bangladeshis they can have Assam. Get KiN back, tell them both to suck it long and hard.

Alternately, just contract with Nepal to borrow the Gurkhas for a few weeks (and since the brits have been laying off the little farkers for awhile now, you might even be able to wrangle the ones serving Her Majesty for a better retirement plan). Throw in the Skihs, and ship them all off to land in Dover. Battle of Hastings 2: Delhi Boogaloo?

MythDragon:Edge: British Military with aircraft carriers, Apaches, and cluster bombs"

ha. when that show was popping, there was an episode where they gave Apache Warrior the edge over Roman Gladiator (mainly because as I recall, the bow and arrow was superior and more lethal than the gladiator's close-in weapons, but who cares.)

anywyas, there was a thread here and some dude was mega butthurt about that. he was like, "that show is BULLshiat! there is NO WAY a roman gladiator would lose to a stone age technology! no freaking way, period. I call bullshiat! Didn't they see Russell Crowe in "Gladiator"? this is bullshiat! No freaking way Russell Crowe loses to Tonto. Go watch "Gladiator", you assholes. Seriously. this is bullshiat and I'm boycotting the show FOREVER!"

A bunch of years ago Egypt was sending a guy around to retrieve all of the items that came out of the pyramids on the grounds that since the country was now stable for the long-term the excuse for holding it safely until they got their act together wouldn't fly.

Ebba dabba dooba, surley they weel geeve eet back.Yeah, How about you guys figure out how to use flush toilets, drink clean water, get the cows off the streets, stop stampeding your own people during religious parties, and kick the Muslim psychos out, first, and then we'll talk.About hiring you back as houseboy.

give me doughnuts:Somacandra: The moral of the story: colonialism sucks ass (the bad kind), no matter how hard Dinesh D'Souza tries to polish that turd.

It was the best thing that ever happened to Africa.

/gets popcorn

For your popcorn: if you consider the immigration of the brownies from India to UK and pretty much taking over the high skilled fields, is UK getting colonized (never thought of the word, hmm) by India now?